The Ringer NBA Show - Instant Reactions to Nets-Sixers | The Answer

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

Chris and Seerat share their analysis of the Nets’ blowout win over the 76ers on Thursday night. They speculate about the resulting narrative fallout, talk through the emotional weight of the game (14:57), examine the major players’ stats (21:45), and discuss the tactics displayed by both teams (29:08). They end the pod by asking the big questions that will need answering for the rivalry going forward (33:13). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Seerat Sohi Production Assistant: Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Are you ever curious what's going on behind the scenes in Hollywood? You watch a Netflix show or a Marvel movie and you wonder, why was that person in it? Why did this movie get made? I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, on the Ringer podcast network, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight

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I'm Chris Ryan and I am joined as always by Siritt Sohey. What's up, Siritt? Chris, I'm doing well, but I think the better question is really, how are you? I'm fine. You know what? Philadelphians are resilient people. We're recording this on Thursday evening right after the Brooklyn Nets beat the Philadelphia 76ers 129 to 100, and it didn't seem that close.

Of course, they did this after I wrote a hype piece about the Sixers on the ringer.com, which you're welcome to read as like an artifact from a different era. We're going to do something tonight. We're going to try something out a way of kind of breaking down games that we'll try it out during the playoffs as well. And we've christened this thing, the nest system, N-E-S-T. So we're going to be looking at the game from four different kind of quadrants, four different perspectives, from narrative, emotion, statistics and tactics. So narrative, obviously being like the storylines going into and coming out of

the game. The emotions, one of us might be emotionally invested in this result. We'll find out and we'll just sort of talk a little bit about it from a fandom perspective. The stats, any numbers that we thought were really resonant coming out of the game and, of course, tactics, which is just sort of playbook talk. But, you know, we'll zigzag all over the place. Sir, you're the takesman tonight. The take smith. So you get narrative. What's the storyline coming out of Sixers? nets. It's just, it's just a big siren that's like reminding everybody of James Hardin's playoff history really. That is a dominant narrative. I think that is going to be coming on this game. Yeah, big game James. Did not necessarily show up tonight. Did not necessarily live up to the

moniker. Yeah, really, really tough one from from him tonight. And this was a fun game to do narrative and tactics for because the tactics really bled into the narrative, obviously coming into the day, it was like, it was all about Ben Simmons. Yeah. But the game was actually just way, like, I don't want to say it was way too good, but it was just way too much for it to really be about Ben Simmons beyond, you know, honestly, from opening tip, it just wasn't really about him. You started with, like, two kind of what looked like it was going to be a night where Embed and Kevin Durant go toe to toe, and we have these questions about who the best player

in a hypothetical series would be. and they both did look like, you know, the best player in the world, which we've previously agreed doesn't exactly exist right now. But then he just tapered off and the Nets took over. And really the only moment of catharsis that I thought that Sixers fans got was in the fourth quarter when the ball rolled over to Ben Simmons and he briefly caught it before passing it back in bounds and they all started booing him.

That was pretty much it because I was really ready for things to, I think if this was a competitive game, things could have gotten maybe out of hand, but also probably more exciting in a way, too. Yeah. Like, I was imagining some chance, like, you know, just a crowd that can really, I think, can really just, like, get going emotionally and which we will talk about. But it just didn't go that way. So, yeah, I think it's all, it's all really about, it seems like all of the attention that

was on Ben Simmons. First of all, some of that is taken away. But we're, I'm really just thinking about James Hardin right now. And, you know, him and him and Daryl Morey going off into the. sunset together. Just, oh, always, like these two. Taking the private jet. Yeah. Somewhere into the sunset. Yeah. I think that you're right. I think that the idea here is that did the Sixers trade away their depth for James Hardin and is James Hardin enough to make up for

that depth? If he's going to play like that, no. Presumably there is a version somewhere in the middle of what we saw tonight from Hardin and what we saw from Hardin against, say, the Bulls or the Knicks games that they played. So I'm not trying, I'm not trying to get too high or too low on that performance from Hardin, although I do think it was pretty glaring. Like, you're right. I think that when we were coming into this game, I obviously wrote about the Simmons aspect of this kind of hovering over the proceedings. There were some videos from earlier in the day of Sixers fans like booing and yelling at the Nets bus as they were getting on at the hotel. Like, it had a little bit more of a March Madness like Tobacco Road

vibe than most NBA regular season games do. But once the game started, it kind of reminded me of like when you get into an argument with like a significant other or whatever and you're, you think you're just like, we're just arguing about who did the dishes last, right? And then you're like, wait, are we still together? 15 minutes later? Like I thought like when the nets went up, you know, 15, 20 in what seemed like a blink of an eye, I was like, wait, what are we even fighting about? Why are you guys so angry? I was like, do you guys care about Ben this much already that you're trying to like put us in the dirt? This is crazy.

But yeah, Kevin Durant is just hitting dagger after dagger. I thought you guys said this didn't matter. Yes, where you said this is a media fabrication. You know, like it was just sort of like, you guys take it easy. Like I guess the fans kind of care about this. Then it's not even, we're not even done the first quarter and KD and Joelle are just snarling at each other over really like what was what was a pretty innocuous. foul call. Like it wasn't even like the game was chippy at that point. I would have been curious to see what it would be like to be at that game because it just seemed. I mean, the TNT announcers,

I think Reggie Miller was like, I've been here for a lot of playoff games. I've been here for a ton of games and this is as intense as an atmosphere as I've seen. For folks who were listening in the radio or didn't get a chance to watch it, but are listening to a podcast breaking the game down, Ben Simmons was resplendent in Pittsburgh Penguins color Louis Vuitton hockey jersey that was like right off the back of Yarmierre Yer and was just like hanging out. on the end of the bench was politely getting up and golf clapping, like any run of play that was good for the Nets, and that was quite frequently.

So he was up and down from his seat a lot. The back didn't seem to be bothering him. And yeah, I think he got an earful. And after the game, KD was certainly like, at the end of the game, they weren't booing. They weren't saying Ben Simmons sucks. There was actually more Nets fans here than Sixers fans. So you got to take your medicine.

But to your hardened point, I'm going to ask this knowing the answer, do you think that this is an aberration? or do you think that this is a cause for concern for Sixers fans? I think it just highlights exactly what it is, you know, Hardin, the pressure that is on Hardin right now because it was, I would say it's not an aberration. I think you knew that's probably what you thought I was going to say. Just because of the way that it happened to,

it really just had all of the makings of a Harden playoff collapse or a Harden big game collapse. Like we start off with like, you know, it's a little bit, a little bit timid. And then we get into the things that, I guess, tactically, kind of consistently happen with him where, you know, you open that game and it doesn't really matter who's guarding Kevin Durant, although Tobias Harris, like, it cannot be the answer. But it doesn't, it doesn't really matter.

You put Dybul on him, it doesn't really matter. Thibble can't guard Durant and Irving at the same time. So they're going to have to come up with something for that. No, he tried to jump between both and pretty much everybody else in the court today. Pretty strange, weird, crazy game from my favorite player. But, you know, you get into the stuff that, we see with Hardin. The Nets have a lot of physical defenders, and they're actually kind of filled to the brim with guys that you'd kind of want to have guarding James Hardin, right? Like you got Bruce

Brown, you got James Johnson, you know, Katie and Kyrie spent some time on him, and they obviously have guarded him before. They know what it's like. But pretty much like the hodgepodge of players that we have talked about on the Nets, you know, will they be able to kind of like have a use for all of them in the playoffs? That doesn't really necessarily feel like a question to mean a hypothetical Sixers Net Series because those are all the types of guys that you'd want to be able to have like against Hardin and say like, yeah, we can afford to take six fouls on you, which is not going to happen because we have KD and Kyrie on our team and like, you know, just yeah, like try to see if the reps call six fouls on them in the playoffs like again and again and again, it's not going

to happen. Yeah, there's a couple of things in the stats category that we will get to that I think, I think really leap out about what the Sixers were trying to do there, which I thought was kind of naive and whether we want to get into that's Doc's fault or the Sixers' fault. But yeah, I thought I definitely picked up on that as well. Before we get on to the emotional part about it, I did want to mention one other possible storyline coming out of this. This might be actually like a little bit Galaxy Brain, but I still want to throw it out there,

which is the Nets needed this game more than the Sixers. So the Nets have Kyrie four more times in the regular season if the vaccine mandate rules don't change in New York City because they're playing the NICs twice. They have a batch of home game, so they basically have four more. high reappearances for the rest of the regular season. They're currently at 500.

They're doing fine or whatever, and I'm sure they'll make the playoffs. But I do think that this was like in the same way that the Lakers needed to beat the Warriors more than the Warriors needed to be the Lakers. The Nets needed to beat the Sixers just as badly as the Sixers needed to beat the Nets, if not more. And I wonder if in the spin zone of the NBA, like you could make the argument that it's like the Sixers are worried about, they're now five and two in the six games since Hardin or seven games.

and Sardons been traded. They're doing fine. Maybe it's even good for them to be in the three seed so they don't see the nets coming out of the play and door. You know, there's all sorts of stuff you could say. But I do wonder whether you could say, well, the nets really needed that one. See, I like that you got that out of your system before really dive into the emotions. Like, with this kind of, you know, you did, you've done like the classic disassociation stuff.

Like, you've seen it from the other person's side. Sure. You're like, well, hey, like, what would I have to be worried about? maybe the other guy should actually be worried. We call that projecting, actually. But no, I wouldn't play around with his take, if not for the nature of this victory for the Nets, because they're very much a team that is hypothetical.

And, you know, up until the playoffs, like they are very much going to continue to be hypothetical. We'll see when Ben's back. But, you know, hopefully those games do coincide with the games that Kyrie can actually play. But that said, the nature of this Smackdown was just a little too much to really, like, I don't think you can spin this one.

It almost gave me shades of the Rockets versus Warriors in the playoffs, the way that the game would just kind of get bogged down into tunnel vision for Hardin and Chris Paul and like everybody else would just be standing around watching. And the funny thing is like they were all kind of, they run the same plays now ever since Hardin went over to the Sixers. But like the play style of the best players is what it really comes down to. because the way that the Nets just kind of got the Sixers to get bogged down. Like there's two ways to look about it.

Like, I think if you want to spin this, like, the best way to spin it is just to say that the Sixers really just didn't try. And we don't know why. We don't know why. Like, you know those days where you just wake up and you're like, you're supposed to have, like, an exciting day? But it just, like, it's just not in your body. Like, you're like, oh, you know?

Like, it felt like, like M.B. was really trying to get, like, get himself up for this one, you know, and it started off like that, but defensively, let me ask you a question, actually, because this has kind of been the story of the season for him. How much do you care that on defense, he doesn't really care? Who? Embeded or Hart? Yeah, Embed. Well, I think that Embeddied relies on, like, his pure physical gifts a lot on defense. And also, like, this was an example of a team where he will never be in that category of big man that gets played off the court by any means. But There was almost like a, the free flowing, like balls whipping around, pace is high, Kyrie and Kevin Durant running downhill, and all this, like, and we can get to this tactical part,

but like all the weird, like, kind of like fake doubles they were throwing at Kevin Durant that didn't work, kind of put him beat on an island that he did not want to be on. So I did not, all those, all those shots of Bruce Brown with like five yards of open space to start his leap for, a dunk. I don't think that M. Bede's going to put that in his Hall of Fame real. But yeah, like, I mean, I think M. B.D. is like a defensive player of the year candidate that could still probably stand to improve in certain aspects of his defense. What did you think of his defensive effort? I don't really put him in the defensive player that your candidacy this year. I mean, I don't necessarily blame him for it by any means. Just like, he's had such a high offensive load.

Like, he's set after Hardin came. Like, he was sick of posting up so much. And his attempts and everything are down and it's maybe we'll see now a kind of refocus on the defensive end but i don't really feel like he's been that engaged this year like he's just been really like flat-footed and like not really into a lot of different matchups and i think we saw that this year like there was a there was a lob play where it's like you know an engaged playoff mbid would have gone and gone and like deflected that lob and i think that was in the third quarter but you know just the way that he kind of let drummond get open on on on a lot of those like wasn't really what I think I'm used to seeing from like high level, like really engaged defense from Mb.

And like the same kind of goes for like the coverage on defense with with the pick and rolls was to have Mbid pretty much switch. But like, you know, it was it was one of those weird performances from the whole team. I don't really necessarily single him out where, you know, he would switch. But he was not really like as physical as engaged, I guess, as the Nets Defenders were. and it was just easy to kind of shoot over him. And that was kind of the story for KD, like pretty much the whole game, like just rip off the screen and shoot a jumper.

And there's just not going to be a lot of pressure. Yeah, I don't know. Like that would be my spin. My spin would be like they just didn't really, they didn't really play a playoff game after that first like six minutes. It was like clear that this wasn't going to be like that easy of a game for them. It was like, all right, well. And Doc Rivers did say at a half time when they were like,

what can you do differently? He's like play harder. And maybe that's coach speak, but maybe that's true. So we're summarizing for the narrative part here. It's basically meet the New Hardin, same as the Old Hardin. We're saying maybe the Nets needed this more than the Sixers. And we're saying, did the Sixers even show up and try it all? So emotionally, I'll keep this brief because I do think that I don't want to get into

too deep of the weeds like Philadelphia-wise. But this is why Philadelphia fans get joker-fied. You know, like this is definitely like what Joker pills, Philadelphia fans, is they work themselves up into such a frenzy, myself included and chiefly responsible for it from my own misery today. But like you kind of build up expectations for stuff that you then don't deliver on and then you don't know how to cope with the result. So I think it would have been fine. I actually think I threw in my piece. The Sixers could lose by 25 and definitely had a vision of what happened tonight playing through my head.

Like I'm not being like, I'm being serious when I was like, there's just a world in which KD and K. and Seth Curry have 50 in the first half, and there's nothing you can do about it. But I think you made an interesting point where you mentioned, like, MBEed in those first six minutes, and Durant Irving looked like they were in their element. Like, they looked like they hadn't had this much fun in, like, years,

or at least since last season's playoffs, where they seemed like they were loving the energy, they loved the booze, they loved the tension, and they were kind of like laughing and, and getting under people's skin and not backing down from Embed and not bending the knee and be like, oh, it's the Sixers. It's their coronation. And they blew us apart. And the Sixers didn't seem to have like an emotional response to it.

And in some ways, I don't think the fan base did either. I mean, it's interesting to look at Twitter, if you consider that the like real microcosm of the Philadelphia fan experience or any fan basis experience. And watch the little different debates going on between like we got screwed in this trade to it's. not that big of a deal. It's one game. The Sixers are going to be good for five years, you know? But yeah, I think that this is kind of like a very familiar feeling for the Sixers, which is essentially it's all roller coaster. It's never highway. It's never smooth sailing or cruising or, hey, we lost by 11, but you know, like blah, blah, blah, this shot will fall or that shot won't fall next time. It's like, shit, this is a disaster. We're on the Titanic.

Does that on some level make it a little bit easier, though? Like, when you, when you've watched this team, like in multiple playoff series, go from getting blown out to be the team that is then don't knowing out the blowout. That just seems to be like how the story goes for them in most playoff series. Does that make it easier to deal with it in this moment? Like, can you kind of just like level yourself? I can level myself because it's Harden seventh game of the team. So like, I think that for as much as we can talk about big game James stuff and like Harden like performatively putting a ice pack on his calf in the fourth quarter to like signal that he's not at his best health right now. I do think that like there are just going to be some growing pains. I did think

that tonight emotionally the game seemed bigger than maxi for one thing. So for instance, like I thought like yeah, I just thought like he's he has been playing like a little bit above his pay grade for a couple of games now. Like he's he's been out of his mind. Like and I think he is actually a great NBA player. And this was just like a really, really, really intense situation for him to be kind of the de facto third party, the third star in this team. And Hardin being so deferential for the Sixers right now and not being like, you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to go out and score 32 and keep us in this game and everything like, I just think like Maxi didn't show up. Tobias is not that dude anymore. So there was just like a little bit of like a who's,

who's going to stop the bleeding? And maybe maybe the atmosphere was a little. intense for him. Yeah, it felt like the first game that they kind of, like, Hardin and Maxie also ran into some communication issues and stuff too. Like, they seem to fit like two peas in the pot immediately. And there was a moment in the second quarter of this game where there was just like, there was a lot of yelling kind of back and forth between Hardin and Maxie, not like, you know, bad yelling. It was just like, you know, Hardin was trying to get him, I think, to like run up the floor and, you know, clear out and make, make space for Embed to get a post up. And then, first of all, like, the Nets were doing great job of denying.

So then they wanted to get it to Maxie and give them a different angle for the past. But it just didn't seem like, that seemed like what was happening. But they weren't on the same page. And then Maxi just ends up clearing out of the lane. And then they run an Embedd-Hardin pick and roll from the left side, which the Nets overloaded, and they overloaded and they started. And the Sixers started to make some adjustments later in the game. Like, there was a nice cross-court.

pass to Harris for a three and he he he hit a couple and you can kind of start to see how they be able to mix him into into this offense like there's been some back and forth in the media in terms of like you know this is how he's going to have to play now he's going to have to adjust to spotting up more and it's it's kind of funny like watching it be like such a struggle of like oh he has to hit easier shots now it's going to be really hard and on some level it's like it's always true there's like there's an adjustment but it's also been kind of funny to to have it all in that context, kind of given the season that Harris has had. But yeah, like back to that play, though, like that was one where I think that cross-court pass

is just going to be something that's a little bit more automatic going forward. And this was also just not a game where we got really anything from Thibel on offense in terms of cutting. Like, he was just wide open in the corner and the top of the key multiple times and taking those jumpers instead of cutting into the lane. And that's something that, you know, playoff series can't really happen. Obviously, he's got to work on that shot, but his lack of movement on offense was also kind of strange. A lot of strange role player performances in this game.

Absolutely. So, yeah, I mean, I think emotionally, I would say that glad this game is behind us. Much like Ben Simmons. I'm sure, you know what? I honestly do feel, though, like, if there's like a troll winner coming out of this game, it was the Nets. Like, the Nets did not have to bring Ben Simmons to this game. and they were like, you know what? You're going to have to do this sooner or later.

And you should come and you should sit on the bench and people are going to talk shit all game. And then his team came through for him and blew the Sixers out in their own building. And that I would imagine, I can't pretend to understand Ben Simmons's motivations. I imagine that would be a big confidence boost for Ben Simmons. It's just like that was about as bad as it can be

without you actually being on the floor. And you got through it. And we also showed you how good we can be. be now you come in and you take Bruce Brown minutes or James Johnson minutes and like think about what we are. So I feel like the Sixers got kind of like trolled in their own in their own building. We can we can move on to stats because I feel like there's a connection here. You know, the nest. It's all it's all the same thing. But we're still like the next thing I want to talk about are some of the numbers. A bunch of weeds connecting together. Exactly. But like there's a couple of things

I was going to look at. I mean, I have one note here, which is basically just noting that the net shot 66% from the field and had a 135.9 offensive rating in the first half. And I don't know how sustainable that is. If this was sustainable or if this is what they did every night, they would not be an eighth. The thing that I really wanted to point out, though, was something that KD said after the game. Because Stephanie Reddy was asking Durant court side about

the beginning of the game specifically and also their defense on the Sixers. And he was like, yeah, you know, like, it's hard not to foul and beat, but we basically just wanted to make it, He had some cliche about making it tough for them. But then he noted that he felt like all the free throws the Sixers were taking actually got them out of their rhythm. And this is something I just would throw out there as a little bit of an Achilles heel with Moribal.

You do wonder if your solution for everything is just get contact and make the refs give you your foul shots. And the Sixers took 25 free throws in the first half. Brooklyn only took seven. So that's quite a disparity. But I obviously thought like the nets were just in full flow. Like every time down the court, they weren't thinking about getting and beating foul trouble or anything else.

They were like, we're going to find Seth or we're going to find Durant or we're going to find Irving and they're going to be open. And this is going to be a good look at the hoop for us. And the Sixers did not have a plan like that. It just felt like they were trying to get drummond in foul trouble for whatever reason. They kind of got a couple of cheap fouls on Durant and Irving here and there. But I was like, what do you guys really think that? Durant's going to foul out.

Like, that's not, that happens, like, once a season, maybe, or once every two seasons. So I just thought that that was, like, kind of honestly a stupid tactical, but, like, decision, but it comes out of the stat. Like, Durant being like, that was a mistake for them to rely so much on the free throws really, really left out of me because the Sixers have been dining out on free throws since Hardin arrives. That's a really good point because I was kind of wondering this. I was looking, I was kind of tracking the free throws and looking at how early they got into

bonus and it just never mattered. It didn't. It just never mattered. So I had in my notes and I kind of took it out because, you know, I felt like it was already going to be tough night for you anyways and we could, we could revisit this at probably a later date. But I just had something that was like, is this like the hardenedification of, uh, of Joelle Embed? Because he was kind of using the exact same tactics that Harding uses when he gets into trouble. Now the hardened end of it, um, and why it was concerning is just like, there are so many. times when I feel like when Harding gets a little bit frustrated that he instead of looking to score is straight up looking to get fouled. And there was there was one I think in the second

quarter where it was against KD and he sees that KD is going to be laid on the rotation and he just kind of like pummles into him and doesn't even actually attempt a shot. He just wants to guarantee that he gets fouled. Now tactically obviously that makes a ton of sense. And then defensively it can also allow you to take the ball out of the basket and all those things. All these things that, like, you know, we've been saying a lot about free throw attempts. Like, you get it on an intellectual. Right, exactly, exactly.

All the things that we kind of understand about free throw attempts and everything, but it does bog the game down. And I think on a larger level, what the challenge for the Sixers is going to be is, like, that they do have two ecosystems, essentially, on offense that are both going to want the ball, that both also, like, you know, you, looking at this game and Bede Kyrie, KD, the thing that was similar about all of them is like defensive coverage against players like that sometimes it's just not going to matter. Like, you know, like you can, you can bring the double and he'll, and Bid's going to like

fade on the other side of it. You can, you can try to front him, but he's going to find a way to get the ball or he's going to start facing up. He hit a couple threes as well. And that, that is not always going to be available to you as the Sixers, right? And you're going to want to keep that well-oiled, but at the same time, like, it feels like the amount that they were going to the well is something to do more in the fourth quarter and make more of an intentional effort in the first quarter in the first half of the game to really get everybody else going. And that seems to be what was missing. And it's going to be an interesting challenge because it's like, does it come down to Hardin to also, you know, run the offense and then try to come up

with his own offense? It's not something that I think, Maxie's not really that type of player. So, I mean, it kind of, I guess it does have to be Hardin, who, like, kind of goes deep into the point guard setup, man, like, you know, thinking about, hey, like, how many shots does Tobias have? You know, got to get Maxie the ball. I mean, that was one of the things that I noticed today was just like it was a crisp polish game from Hardin. In terms, not statistically and obviously didn't win. But I thought, like, in the same way that I'm sure Clippers and Suns fans and Rockies, and Rock its fans or whatever over the years of watching chris paul there are plenty of games sometimes big games where you're like i would really love it if heart if if chris paul would just go out

here and get 22 in the first half and just give us a nice comfortable lead or you know not be deferring the entire night and passing to you know passing it off and i i kind of saw that from harden i just like after he got his reggie miller break breaking three pointer i was like oh cool like do that all night do stepbacks and side step three-pointers all night. And let's get back in this game. And that just disappeared. I felt like he was really, really looking for other players. And his only offensive idea was pretty much, I'm going to run into traffic and try and draw contact. And also, if you're at a game like that, that sucks. So if you were fired up for a game like that and you're basically like, okay, so we're living at the foul line tonight. It's hard to get into it. It's hard

to get emotionally involved. That's a good point. I think those things are connected, right? Like, The tactics, emotions, narrative. All of that stuff, it does, it does actually connect because, you know, that's what you see when you see, like, a team like the Warriors, like, zipping the ball around the floor and they don't even need to know where the other person actually is. Like, they understand it intuitively and that they, you know, before, like, when you're playing a basketball game and you know before you even touch the ball but it's coming

towards you that you're going to be getting rid of it right away. Like, those things, obviously, they build over time, but there's also, like, stylistically, things that you can do to lend, to lend yourself. like a hand to make that happen. And it kind of, I guess it gets a little bit to the limits of tactics too, because the Sixers have added those wrinkles in. But at the end of the day, like, the habits of the best players and their ability to kind of stay disciplined

in those situations really seems to dictate more of how those things go, I guess. And maybe it was actually a little bit too much. Like maybe they were really emotionally invested. Like maybe Embedde was so invested that he was like so interested. that he was so into it, you know, on his own. Yeah. I mean, there was a lot going on out there for Embed. He's got, like, you know, before Drummond was a sixer, he and he and Embedd used to have a rivalry.

Embed and Durant have a rivalry. Durant, I mean, Embed and Ben obviously now have like this thing that connects them for the rest of their careers probably. So I think that there was a lot going on out there. Maybe not distracting Embed because he certainly seemed focused. It's just that he didn't get the result he wanted. tactically I wanted to ask you one question though like specifically because I think the one person we haven't really mentioned over the course of this podcast is doc rivers and obviously I noted with interest that that uh Seth Curry who is Doc Rivers's son-in-law like was chirping a little bit at the bench

uh Andre Drummond who came to the Sixers because he wanted to play with Doc Rivers and had had such good experiences with him in the past like Andre seemed to be thriving in Brooklyn before he hurt his ankle. I didn't necessarily think that Doc did anything to change this game. Now, maybe you could make the argument that that's where the playoffs come in and that's where you start hunting, Seth Curry mismatches or, you know, doing things to slow the game down or doing things to bust up what the nets are doing. But like tonight I just didn't feel like there was any counter moves. Was I watching that too much from a fan's perspective or did you see anything from Doc? So it was a difficult game to, in a moment, parse out exactly.

what was going on on defense because you had a game from Thibel that was, you know, just at the upper echelon of like how undisciplined he can be at times. He was running around completely ignoring Bruce Brown. And that is obviously a game plan thing, right? Like you, Bruce Brown and Thibel are kind of each other's mirrors in the series and that they're going to get ignored and then it's kind of on them to figure out, you know, how to find slivers in the defense and get open. And the worst. way that, like, there were so many times that Taibol was just completely on the other end of the floor. And, you know, Bruce would just cut.

And that's, that, I think, is a big reason why, like, as you mentioned earlier, you had so much space, he had a full runway to go. So it's, to me, it's like, you know, the Nets completely took advantage of, of the Sixers game plan. The other place where I think it happened, too, was like, this, so the second quarter, there was a brief, you know, it felt like a succession of possession of possession. where the Sixers seem to go to this zone where they'd have somebody helping one pass away on the roll off of Kyrie Irving and then Seth Curry.

And that just doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. And then you just got like, you know, Maxie, again, like, you know, just seemed like maybe this was part of it being big for him, but just, you know, jumping on pretty much every Seth Curry pump fake that he possibly could have. Seth Curry won this game. Like he's the winner of this trade. He's on like, he's now, you know, in an offense that completely suits him.

And he knows the Sixers entire playbook. Like there's like, you get to like the third quarter. And he's like, every single like lazy dribble handoff pass is like Bruce Brown and Seth Curry are just just on them. And that actually to me is like a bigger thing, right? Like I don't know that I saw too many tactical changes, but it's just like if you are, if you're going to not see that there's like the perimeter defender coming for your dribble handoff and make sure you get two hands on it and try it fake, then well, there's just not a lot that

can be done, I don't think. Yeah, I mean, by that same token, I mean, it's, it's weird. It's not like I thought the nets were running like some kind of five-dimensional chess offense. You know what I mean? They just had the two best players on the floor. One thing that I noticed about both these teams is that the Sixers have to get out of their stuff sometimes to get their stars going. And the Nets don't have to do that. Like, KD can just rack up points so quickly, and then you can kind of go to Kyrie when things break down. And Kyrie's also just done a much better job of finding his offense within the flow as well. And that's just not really the case for a post-up big man, you know?

That I think is going to be one of the challenges for the Sixers. Like they can be incredibly dangerous, but just fitting these two guys together and finding a way to, you know, always make sure that you're going to the well with Embed, but also getting the other guys going. for a guy that's developing his playmaking is like and is not it's not really fair to him I guess to say

he's still developing his playmaking but he can get tunnel vision at times and sometimes that's fine but there I guess just needs to be a little bit more of a balance and you've got two guys that are probably a little bit more naturally inclined to scoring even though they are gifted at other things I'm going to add a fifth category on

to Nest before we get out of here which is just questions going forward like what's your big like unanswered question coming out of this game? I don't know that I have anything to add The tactical stuff that we talked about with the Sixers and just kind of where they go from here is my biggest question. Where's your playbook, bro? That's your question. What's your question?

It basically goes right back into the storyline thing, which is like, I note with interest that Hardin said, we got our ass kicked tonight. And basically it was like, that's a good thing. Like, it'll help make us stronger. I just want to see how this team responds. And I want to see how he specifically responds. And it's been a little bit, like now you're thinking to yourself. okay, got to see you play in Minnesota, got to see you beat up on a pretty bad Knicks team,

got to see you go off on a Bulls team without Vooch and Lonzo and Caruso. You play against a Nets team without Simmons and get absolutely smoked and looked like you didn't even want to be guarded by Kyrie Irving, who is not necessarily known as like the most ferocious defender in the league. I just didn't know that Goran Drogic was like such a big Hardin stopper, you know? But like what's Hardin's counter punch? Like what is the comeback here? I actually have to do some more hamstring maintenance,

and we're going to manage my pain until the end of the regular season, or is it I understand what just happened, and I understand what needs to happen next. On the net side, just want to see if they do it, do it, and the lights aren't on, you know? I mean, they obviously, like, destroyed Charlotte, destroyed Philly. Like, very impressive victories, very impressive Kyrie games, very impressive Kyrie Durant things.

They're about to lose Kyrie for chunks of the rest of the regular season, like we said, just like what happens when nobody's watching, you know? It's like the opposite of the hardened question, really. It's like the same thing with like the Lakers getting absolutely embarrassed by Houston in overtime, but like they look like world beaters against the Warriors. Yeah, I guess the difference would just be the like the Nets at least are definitely going to make the playoffs. I always wonder about this.

Like what would you rather have, I guess? Because this is a question. This is kind of how I look at the Hawks too. Like there's these teams that just the Nets seem to think that they can flip a switch, I guess. but I also think that maybe they can. That's kind of a question, and it's also a perfect place to end. Sir, thank you so much for joining me and helping me sort through my,

I wouldn't go as far as they pain. I'd say confusion, you know? I think it was more of just like a confusing evening. Thanks to Chris Sutton for producing us. We will be back next Friday. I hope you guys enjoyed our post-game chat. We'll broaden our horizons next Friday and talk about teams other than the Sixers and the Nets. But this was really fun.

Yeah. Talk to you next week.